from the handful of games I’ve seen so far seems to have slipped massively since two years ago.
I’d have thought with no crowds there it would have encouraged less pressurised better passing football, but the opposite seems to be the case so far.
Everything seems to be hurried, squeezed, niggly fouls, playing to win fouls, no flow to games whatsoever.
Agree / disagree ?
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I'd say the ref probably made tonights game look worse than it was, because he gave a foul for everything. Compare that to the Northampton ref, who I think if was in charge if this game it would have been quiet good to watch.
Doncaster and Sunderland are both dropping into that inconsistent tag whilst we're copying Lincoln by grinding out results, just with a bit more style
Saturday against Portsmouth will be the first true big test if we've got what it takes to be in that top two
We have played well in patches but improving dramatically since Sunderland.
Still a lot of teams coming together late because of covid and the disruption of last season.
I think you'll see improvement in games after chrimbo.
For that reason I think it will make it harder to get out
P.s. it’s “niggly”, snowflakes may kick off with your spelling...
I think most sides in this division try and play on the deck, every side is playing from the back and looking to find some space and absorb a press. The theory is often a lot better than the practical or another way of putting it the quality of football is good the quality of footballer less so
As someone else said, we have played half a dozen of the teams in the bottom spots as well
Have a look at Joe Ward at Peterborough, always eye him up to back to score. Class player and Peterborough are a pretty expansive side
Doncaster play decent football too and Wigan are a good side as well just hampered with the type of shit we are used to
The reason being that referees blow the whistle for every little knock and the players 'draw the foul' and fall over at every opportunity. The only thing I don't like about our commentators is that they seem to find this behaviour ordinary.
I actually replayed a part of that match on BBC4 to my ten year old son and went through what would have happened if it were today. Killer went for the ball against the goalie who got a bit hurt with his challenge. Killer looked first at the ref to say sorry then he apologised to the keeper. A Palace defender was a bit irate but Killer apologised to him aswell obviously saying that he was going for the ball. The goalie said that he was OK, the Palace defender and Killer shook hands and the ref was satisfied with that, and the game continued.
If that were today, the goalie would be writhing away on the ground, the Palace defender would have pushed the attacker in the chest who would have fallen on the ground too, the ref would have run over and given a yellow card to the defender. They would be arguing about it for ages, forced by the ref to shake hands but would all still have a bee in their bonnet about it for ages. And so it would go on.
Ironically, after the match, Allison was talking about a league managers' meeting in which they would discuss referees unneccessarily stopping the match, and players faking fouls. It was like listening to someone I spoke to here in La Roche sur Yon moaning about traffic jams and wondering what they'd think of living in London.
The only thing wrong with League One is the players (and even the referees) acting like spoilt brats who think that they are always right, and wanting to get everyone else into trouble. That's why the quality becomes bad.
Or Norwich and Chelsea think it will toughen up their boys and they will return as men at the end of a successful season.
The latter please.
The game at home to Sunderland was the most tedious match I've sat through in years.
If they recall him it'll be because he's doing too well and they want him for their own team
I'm sure Chelsea will be happy to let Maatsen stay the season, his first loan spell and he's only young
Also mainly full of Northern teams who have proper local derbies which mean that most if the time they don't have to travel anywhere. Whereas there are never any London sides & never any derbies that you can call "local". Also have to travel to Plymouth & Sunderland in the last month of the season. So so pissed off that we went down instead of Sheff Wed last season.
With lower league clubs usually only able to commit to one or two year contracts, the better players will be cherry picked even more swiftly than normal, whilst the lack of continuity in most club's squads can't help in trying to establish a coherent style of play.
For that reason i'm convinced we will be strong promotion contenders. Portsmouth will definitely be our toughest game so far though.